Ince - no more departures

Thursday 17 January 2008 00:08 BST

Paul Ince won his first game as a Premier League manager and insisted there will be no more big-money departures from Blackburn.

The new Ewood Park boss has sold David Bentley and seen Roque Santa Cruz, Benni McCarthy and Stephen Warnock all linked with moves before the deadline comes to an end. But after seeing his side beat Everton 3-2 with a winner four minutes into injury-time from defender Andre Ooijer, Ince hit back.

"I do not want to keep saying this, but nobody is going to be leaving the club," he said.

"This has been going on and on - about Santa Cruz and other people. The more you keep on about it the more it unsettles what we are trying to achieve," he added.

"We want to keep our best players, be it Santa Cruz, Warnock or McCarthy and any one of a dozen players.

"Let's dispel all this. No-one is leaving the club, we have had a really good start in this game. We have won at Everton and not many teams do that apart from the top four. It was a great achievement."

Everton boss David Moyes was angry with his defenders after the defeat.

He explained: "Our defending at times was rubbish. We had experienced players, internationals, who were not at the races.

"We gave away a daft free-kick for their winner, and even then Ryan Nelsen was offside when the ball came into the box.

"On the balance, Blackburn probably deserved the win, but we had enough chances and once we were ahead we should have had defenders out there who could have hung on to the victory."